Tuesday, December 22, 2015

One can ride a bike in Hartford and its surrounding towns. It isn't the greatest bike riding ever, but it is fine. This year I've been fortunate to have a good bit of time to ride.

It would be nice (will be nice?) if more people start riding bikes here, but it's been good to just focus on riding the bike and to (mostly) forget that the streets are clogged with single occupant vehicular traffic. Rather than having to engage with said motorists on Facebook, I can get all the news I need from the weather report, and from this helpful, quick summary of transportation politics in CT this year: Connecticut 2015, Looking Back on the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (in transportation news).

I hear a lot about how dangerous cycling is from my suburban colleagues, which makes a certain kind of sense--they're very inexperienced bike riders, they drive everywhere, and they have a normative driving culture to defend and claw back from the juggernaut of transit-oriented development and BRT systems that provide people like me the choice to ride the bus to work with my bike.

But I haven't really let them get to me too much. This December has been an amazing month to commute by bike in Hartford metro. Here are some shots from my commute this winter.

Broad Street, looking east, on a foggy day.

There are hundreds of ways to get from the South End of Hartford to Simsbury. Going through Elizabeth Park is one of my favorites.

Riverfront ramble.

My favorite road in Hartford County -- the closed-to-cars service road up to Heublein Tower in Taclott Mt. State Park.